Frederick Kerby came from a mechanically inclined family. His father Francis was a curator of instruments at London University; his uncle Henry was listed as a mathematical instrument maker on the 1841 census, and his younger brother Scott Kerby was listed as a philosophical instrument maker in the 1861 census. It was not uncommon at the time in Britain for a craftsmen to have many family members working in his business, which was often conducted from his home.

In the extensive documentation of the disputes between Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke, the name of Frederick Kerby is mentioned in several places as a maker of telegraph instruments for both men in the period 1836 - 1842.

However, the only known instrument to actually bear Kerby’s name is a siren in the collection of Trinity College, Dublin.

Kerby is believed to have emigrated to the United States in late 1842, and there is no evidence that he engaged in instrument making after that. He took with him what appears to be one of Cooke’s workbooks from that period, containing notes on and diagrams of some of Cooke and Wheatstone’s early telegraph instruments.

The workbook did not start as a blank book; Cooke evidently re-used a much older Dutch journal with many blank pages. More information on the workbook may be found at the IEEE Global History Network.

This article summarizes what is known of Kerby’s work with Cooke and Wheatstone, and provides details of Kerby’s life before and after he left England.

Frederick’s father Francis Kerby published widely in the 1810s and 1820s on theoretical chemistry and was assistant and curator of instruments to Dr Dionysius Lardner and Dr William Ritchie, successive Professors of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at London University. He was not a tradesman, and without further evidence it cannot be said that was a model maker, although he came into possession of models, which he may have commissioned for the University. These models were offered for sale by Frederick after his father’s death in 1835.

Searching the Kerbys and Kirbys in London from 1829 to 1846 shows that whilst Frederick Kerby is listed (in Pigot’s Directory of London dated 1839) as having his own premises at Platt’s Terrace, St Pancras, he does not appear in Pigot for 1841, when he appears from advertisements to have moved back into his father Francis Kerby’s house at Spann’s Buildings. Spann’s does appear in the directory, but just one resident is listed.

There is nothing for a Frederick Kerby or Kirby in the two subsequent censuses or in any of the directories consulted. He and his family appear to have left Britain by 1842.

Henry Kerby, most likely the brother of Francis Kerby, had the occupation of mathematical instrument maker in the 1841 census.

Frederick’s brother Scott Kerby was listed as a philosophical instrument maker in the 1861 census, age 32, at 43A Chichester Place, St Pancras. He was born in Cirencester, Gloucester.

In 1839 Frederick Kerby married Charlotte Warner, the daughter of the Kerbys’ neighbour John Warner. The 1841 Census records John (F.) Warner, machinist, at 13 Spann’s Buildings, St Pancras.

In 1841 Warner had living with him James, Charles, and Edwin Warner, as well as several female Warners. James and Charles Warner were also given as machinists.

John Warner received the Silver Isis Medal in its 1834-35 session from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce “for his method of preventing the accidental discharge of fire-arms,” and a silver medal in its 1841-42 session from the same organization for an “Improved Ruling-Machine for Engravers”.

In the 1851 census Warner is also revealed as hailing from Gloucester, the same city as Francis Kerby. The relationship was close enough for John Warner to be named an executor of Francis Kerby’s will in 1835, and for Frederick Kerby to marry Warner’s daughter.

It seems likely that Frederick Kerby worked with John Warner, his much more accomplished machinist neighbour, in his general instrument-making business. Other than his work with Cooke and Wheatstone, only one instrument is known which bears Kerby’s name.

Gloria Clifton reports that she has a note of a mid-nineteenth century siren marked “Kerby 12 Spann’s Buildings, St. Pancras,” seen at a sale many years ago. A siren listed in Science Preserved (Mary Holbrook, 1992) as being in the collection of the Physical Laboratory, Trinity College, Dublin, is signed “F. Kerby 12 Spanns Buildings, St. Pancras, London”.

Kerby siren at Trinity College, Dublin Images courtesy of Richard Dunn, May 2011

Charles Mollan, who has written extensively on scientific instruments and the physical sciences in Ireland, has examined the Trinity siren and provides these further details:

Mahogany base; brass; pillar to cylinder housing; two turned pillars to dial frame, silvered front, two dials. Scales 500-2500 and 20000-100000; watch-hands for dials missing. Type of siren invented by Charles Cagniard de la Tour (1777-1859), first described in 1819.

Note: The 19th century Cagniard-pattern siren was not the loud noise-maker we know today, although both work on the same principle. This was a scientific instrument “to measure the vibrations of the air which make a sound”, used to provide an accurate measurement of an unknown frequency .

The 1841 census shows that the Kerby / Warner neighbours included perfectly respectable jobs such as coachman, carman, labourer, stone mason, painter, laundress, plasterer, silver polisher and brickmaker, as well as a coal merchant and a coke dealer in the adjacent “cottages”. There was also a “cowkeeper”. These are, by-and-large, manual occupations without any common interest, indicating that they gravitated to the buildings because they provided cheap accommodation. There are no other real tradesmen there, apart from the Kerbys and the Warners—unlike, for example, Clerkenwell, where every second house was occupied by someone making parts for clocks and instruments.

One would expect Kerby, if he was successful, to have had a house and workroom around Fleet Street or in Clerkenwell with the clockmakers. That he was living somewhat nearer the fringes of London in Spann’s Buildings, and emigrated soon after, perhaps indicates that he was not prospering at the time of the 1841 census.

There is a firm of lapidary Kerbys throughout the period and later, including an Edward, a Mary Ann & Son and a Henry, all either lapidaries or jewellers, that may be related, as well as a probably unrelated bookseller and a bookbinder.

One of Francis Kerby’s close scientific associates in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, during 1811 and 1812 was Arnold Merrick, by trade an organ-builder. In 1851 No 12 Spann’s Buildings was occupied by an organ-builder. There seems to have been a Gloucester ex-pat community in Spann’s Buildings.

As an aside, Charles Wheatstone was also born in Gloucester, although there is no evidence that he had any connection to either the Warners or the Kerbys.

Spann’s Buildings, where Frederick Kerby lived before leaving London around 1842, is shown in B.R. Davies’ “Topographical Survey of the Borough of St Marylebone” of 1834, south of Old St Pancras Church on what was then called either Kings’ Road or latterly Old St Pancras Road. It was a single row of 23 (according to the 1851 Census) three- or four- or six-room cottages on what was then the outskirts of London. The houses faced east on to the works of the Imperial Gaslight & Coke  Company across a few yards of market gardens, and were not far from the Regent’s Canal and a group of burial grounds.

The majority of people at that time lived in someone else’s house as a lodger or tenant, and a lot of people were crammed into small properties. These houses were built and owned by Charles Spann, who also had some small, very poor properties in near-by Somer’s Town. Spann died in the early 1830s; the Census mis-spelled his name in 1841 and in 1851.

The site was taken for the building of the Midland Railway to St Pancras station in the late 1860s. By 1871 it was under “coal shoots” and the railway track next to Old St Pancras Road , now just Pancras Road, immediately north of St Pancras station. The gasholders of the Imperial Gaslight & Coke Company are still there, across the rail tracks!

Information on Spann’s was found through a long piece in the London Gazette, defining “the boundaries of the district chapelry of of the Parish Chapel (commonly called Old Saint Pancras)” which gives Spann’s Buildings and neighbouring streets (all long gone or renamed) in some detail.  Davies’ Map of St Marylebone names and shows the location.

See the contemporary and modern maps below for the location of Spann’s Buildings and Platt Terrace.  The whole area was completely rebuilt in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the area has completely changed since the 1850s, not just with the coming of the railway but also the re-arranging of the roads to the west.

Spann’s Buildings (red) and Platt Terrace (yellow) on an 1843 map
The general area is now the location of St Pancras and Kings Cross stations
Map extract courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection,
reproduced under Creative Commons License

Present-day location of Spann’s Buildings (blue marker)
and Platt Terrace (yellow markers)

View Spann’s Buildings & Platt Terrace in a larger map
(this link also gives further details of the locations)

Frederick’s father, Francis Kerby, who came from Gloucester, published widely in the 1810s and 1820s on theoretical chemistry and was assistant and curator of instruments to two of the most eminent professors at London University from 1828 until his death in 1835.

See footnote for further information on Francis Kerby, his family, and his associates.

The Case of Professor Charles Wheatstone in the Arbitration between Himself and Mr. William Fothergill Cooke.
1832-1837. Professor Wheatstone’s researches &c., before his acquaintance with Mr. Cooke. Page 84.

I invented the apparatus for making and breaking the circuit, which I have since employed in my new instruments, described in the third patent, and which constitutes one of their most important and indispensable parts. Mr. Kirby (sic), a workman now in Mr. Cooke’s employ, made the instrument, which I shall exhibit to the Arbitrators, in 1835 or 1836.

The Electric Telegraph: Was it Invented by Professor Wheatstone? William Fothergill Cooke, Esq. Part II., Containing Arbitration Papers and Drawings.

Brian Bowers writes: “This was presumably the rotary switch used in the sending instrument of [Wheatstone’s] first ABC telegraph.” (Sir Charles Wheatstone, Science Museum, London, 1975)

With respect to this perfected Hatchment Dial with Key-board, I pointed out that it has never come into practical use:—that it is now to be seen at King’s College, in the only two specimens ever constructed...

I will here mention, that both the “Hatchment Dial” instruments were made entirely under my brother’s direction; one hy Messrs. Moore, the well-known clock makers of Clerkenwell, the other, by a mechanician named Kirby. Mr. Wheatstone, I believe, never saw them, till they were produced complete at Euston Square. Since the text was in type it has been brought to my knowledge that besides these two specimens of the Hatchment Dial, two working models of the same were afterwards made for the trial in Guildhall, mentioned in a following note. Those models have since remained, for show only, in the Board-room of the Electric Telegraph Company.

Authorship of the Practical Electric Telegraph of Great Britain: Or, the Brunel Award Vindicated, in VII Letters Containing Extracts from the Arbitration Evidens of 1841... Edited in Assertion of His Brother’s Rights by the Rev. Thomas Fothergill Cooke, M.A.

During the experiments on the London and Birmingham Railway, Mr. Robert Stephenson asked Mr. Cooke whether the keys could not be so arranged as to have the signals marked upon them. In consequence of this suggestion, Mr. Cooke made the “modification” referred to, which I shall presently produce. Instead of being “a complicated mechanical alteration,” it is an extremely simple key-board, in which the arrangement of the keys is “symmetrical” with the signals on the diagram. It will be proved by Mr. Kirby (sic)and Mr. Moore, who made it, that this “complicated” and abandoned “modification” was at work for several months on the London and Birmingham Railway; in fact, from the 15th July 1837, the time it was made, till the instruments were finally removed, on the 16th January 1838; and I shall also prove to you, both by Mr. Kirby’s testimony, and by other conclusive evidence, that towards the end of the experiments, Professor Wheatstone appropriated even this invention, unimportant as it was, and modified it into the form which he calls his symmetrical key-board, and which he claims in his case as his own original invention.

The Electric Telegraph: Was it Invented by Professor Wheatstone? William Fothergill Cooke, Esq. Part II., Containing Arbitration Papers and Drawings.

My Dearest Mother,

.... I went down by appointment to Mortlake last Monday night with Mr. Wheatstone, and discussed with Mr. Hawes the heads of our agreement . We were occupied at it from 8 till 11 o'clock, when, everything being settled to our mutual satisfaction, our signatures were attached, and the papers placed in lawyer’s hands to embody their spirit in legal circumlocution. They contain all I wish, leaving me sole and entire manager in England, Scotland, and Ireland, with this one exception—that, before selling the patents or licenses, I am to obtain Mr. Wheatstone’s acquiescence in the price. Nothing, of course, can be more reasonable. I am to have a percentage of 1-1 Oth for my expenses and trouble, dividing the balance equally with Mr. Wheatstone, so that out of every £100 I shall have £55 and Mr. W. £45. I do not take any step till the formal agreement is sealed and signed.

Mr. Hawes, in whose advice I place the greatest confidence, is anxious that I should immediately establish an office at the West End, as near the Government offices as possible. This of course I cannot do with my own funds, so hope to find others ready to furnish the means. I have a very clever mechanician, who has arranged with 4 or 5 good workmen to commence operations as soon as I give the word. A large manufacturer is preparing machinery to make and furnish the wire, and I have just completed a perfect set of instruments for exhibition before the members of Government, if they are inclined to take it up. These are all the preparations I dare make at present.

Extracts from the private letters of the late Sir William Fothergill Cooke 1836-39

Once more; Professor Wheatstone is incorrect in stating that he first made the secondary circuit effectual by employing a needle vertically suspended with one permanent contact. The secondary circuit never answered well, but such as it was, it was used with two vertical contacts, as described in December 1837 in the first specification, until superseded by Mr. Cooke’s substitution of the direct blow of a magnetic needle, as described in the second specification in October 1838. Mr. Kirby (Mr. Cooke’s mechanician) will prove that the only discharger which ever had the vertical needle with permanent contact was an instrument on the Great Western Railway, which, being of the old construction, continued to use the secondary circuit, even after Mr. Cooke had superseded its general use. Mr. Kirby will also prove that in June 1839, nearly a year after the secondary circuit had been superseded, this single old instrument was observed to work very defectively with its two contacts; and that Mr. Kirby, for the special purpose of remedying that particular defect, then, by Mr. Cooke’s direction, for the first time applied in that single instance to the vertical discharger the principle of a permanent contact; which, as a principle applied to other purposes, had occurred repeatedly in Mr. Cooke’s earliest instruments, as well as in the horizontal discharger mentioned in his letter of the 25th April 1837.

The Electric Telegraph: Was it Invented by Professor Wheatstone? William Fothergill Cooke, Esq. Part II., Containing Arbitration Papers and Drawings.

Ralph L. Smith age 49, Mechanical Engineer, ??? Wire Mill
Edith M. Smith age 42, born New Jersey, Hair Dresser

Mrs. Charlotte Kerby, widow of Frederick Kerby, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Carl Smith, on Pine street, yesterday afternoon, of heart disease, aged 86 years. She was born in London, England, where she grew to womanhood and was married. She came with her husband to America early in life and lived for a time in New York City. Later Mr. and Mrs. Kirby went to Canada, where their daughter, Mrs. Carl Smith, was born. In 1864 the family came to Lakeland where Mr. Kirby entered the mercantile business, becoming the senior member of the firm of Kerby & Griswold. Deceased’s home for some years was the “Castle House,” at Lake Ronkonkoma, which Mr. Kerby  bought of Alderman Kirk and which house was afterward the home of the late Dr. Zolnowski who committed suicide. Mr. and Mrs. Kerby came to Sayville some ten years ago to be near their daughter, where Mr. Kerby soon afterward died. Deceased was a woman of education and refinement, and was especially accomplished in music, and was a charming entertainer. Until her last illness she had hardly known a sick day. She had been for many years a member of the Episcopal Church. She is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Carl Smith, of this place. The funeral services will be held from the house on Sunday, at 2 p.m. The Rev. J.H. Prescott will officiate.

Obituary of John Carl Smith (extract; full text at link above):
...
Some years after the [Civil] war Mr. Smith returned to Long Island and lived for a time at Lake Grove, where he conducted a general store.  While residing there he married his second wife, Miss Lottie Kerby of Lakeland, who survives him and by whom he had one son, Ralph Lester Smith, who now resides in Detroit, Mich.

It is interesting to observe that Frederick Kerby is not listed as having any technical occupation on census records after his emigration to North America.  This failure to follow his English trade is curious, as both Canada and the USA at that time were desperately short of craftsmen, which ultimately led to their advanced use of machinery to replace skilled hands.

Other than the mention in his 1894 obituary that he had been an “electrician, at one time associated with Prof. Morse”, for which no evidence has yet been found, his occupations are listed as “Clerk” (1861), “Store Keeper” (1870), and “Painter” (1880). Presumably by 1880 he was working at his son-in-law Carl Smith’s painting and decorating business in Sayville.

The “mercantile business” of Kirby/Kerby & Griswold, is mentioned in the obituaries of both Frederick and Charlotte Kerby.  Elijah Griswold owned a cigar manufacturing business in Ronkonkoma in 1870. He retired from this business in 1873, leaving it in the hands of his partner, Charles Carpenter [South Side Signal (Babylon) April 26, 1873]. No mention is made of Kerby in any of the newspaper reports on Griswold’s cigar business.

Frank W Griswold was publisher of the Ronkonkoma Mirror from 1871. At one of Carl Smith’s “Ronkonkoma Dramatic Entertainment Co.” productions at local residents’ houses,”Geo Acorn was perfection itself as played by F. Griswold.” [South Side Signal (Babylon), Saturday, June 26, 1875]. Miss C. Kirby also had a part in this play.

A local newspaper story [South Side Signal (Babylon) Jun 29, 1878] reports: “Ronkonkoma (Lakeland). Carl Smith has opened a store in the building formerly occupied by Mr Kerby,” but no other reference to Kerby’s business has so far been discovered. It is possible, given Kerby’s self-described occupation of “Store Keeper” on the 1870 census, that this business was in fact a retail establishment of some kind.

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